Back to the Basics: The Land, The Community, and Changing Jewish Identity

On the meandering pathway to my family’s home in Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, I always run find myself in heaven. An imagined heaven, of course, but a truly accurate portrayal of what philosophers, religious extremists, intellectuals and desperate individuals have conjured in regards to where we all want to spend our afterlife. The nearby Carmel mountain range is framed by an intricate array of lush flower vines, creeping colorfully along the verandas facing the sunflower fields. Exuberant hibiscus plants line the pathway, interrupted only by the presence of plump passion fruits and mangos hanging heavy on their stems. Ripe lemon trees scatter the nearby gardens, accompanied closely by rampant clusters of spearmint, basil and herbs. And when one can’t recognize the aroma of the nearest edible delight, the coral litchis, succulent and within grasp’s reach provide a fragrance consuming enough to focus on just one source of beauty. That is, until the nearby chatter of nestling swallows and humming birds focuses the eye on the azure sky, dimpled with creamy, sated clouds.

It is Ramat Yohanan,  one of over 200 other Kibbutzim in Israel, that traces one of the most prominent forms of Jewish identity present during the founding of Israel. The Kibbutz is a collective utopian community that combines socialism and Zionism to promote a communal Jewish lifestyle that is primarily based on agriculture. Members all work for the same pay, sharing land, housing and belongings. Even before the establishment of the state of Israel, the Kibbutz movement served to establish a sense of Jewish community through the cultivation of land. And following the creation of the state, it served as a source through which new immigrants could more easily assimilate into Israeli culture.

Today’s Kibbutzim (plural for Kibbutz) account for about 40% of Israel’s agricultural output 9% of Israel’s industrial output, worth almost 10 billion dollars. Such communities have changed with time, and farming has been partially supplanted by other economic branches including commercial and high tech enterprises. Nonetheless, Kibbutzim continue to serve as a reminder of some of Israel’s core founding values: the maintenance of close community and a love for the land that supports such life.

 I come to visit my Kibbutz on most weekends, and it helps me feel closer to Israel’s core because it fulfills the gaps left empty in the nation’s changing societal values. From the age of 15, President Peres spent many years living within Kibbutzim, and he even served as one of the founders of Kibbutz Alumot. When I sit with friends, drinking beers and snacking contentedly on the figs we have just picked from a nearby tree, I think back to the President’s youth and his own transition from the fields to a government office.

 With Israel’s rising success in the high-tech market, its increased industrial output, and changing notions of religion and the true role it should play in the Israeli identity, Jewish selfhood is indeed changing. Kibbutzim are slowly being destroyed by the capitalistic values, that while positively affect Israel’s role internationally, have undermined some of the core aspects of Israel’s founding identity.

 My imagined future of the Jewish identity continues to embrace the value of the close knit community: an environment in which members are obligated to support one another. Such an identity embraces the worth of the land inherently.

 The kibbutz itself represents a safe haven from the burdens of the intellectual world. People work the land for what is needed- a career that is not necessarily recognized with honor in an academic environment, but so incredibly essential for the human existence. Sometimes, when I have such waves of recognition it is hard to see the value in anything beyond the basics. These are the revelations that spark my interest in how the President considers his own career after having led such a distinct lifestyle for so many years.

On Red Tape, Formalities, and A Firm Hand Shake with The President

Last Thursday, I was discussing a current project with my boss  when I found myself shoulder to shoulder with President Peres. I had been so completely enveloped in my conversation that I was unaware of his gradual, though discreet entrance. As unsurprising as his appearance may have been given that I was in his actual daily office, working in his home, and assisting him during interviews, I found myself momentarily stunned by his close presence. I might have physically jolted with astonished rapture when he smiled and said hello, grasping my palm in a firm handshake. The truth is, despite how often  I see Israel’s beloved President walking about and working, this was the first time he had formerly addressed me, acknowledged my own presence and therefore position as a member of his staff.

 I keep on thinking about on my startled reaction to his acknowledgement, in the greater scheme of working in a government office. A government office, like most professional environments, is chock full of formalities, politically correct behavior, conventionality, red tape, and protocol. Last week, when I was assisting with a security tour in the President’s House for several high officials preceding an impending political meeting, I couldn’t help but recognize the absurdity in the reserved detachment pervading the affair.

 Sometimes all of these government interactions appear stiff, standoffish and even inflexible. Typical human interactions become polluted by how correct everything should be. What I mean to say is, officials come into meetings with agendas and pre-conceived, generalized notions about how the other side will behave, and forget how to be human. Human: to really laugh, ask about each other’s families, and connect based on purely non-political subjects. On the occasion, when I think about it too much, I begin to think all of the ritualistic stateliness behind political interaction is perhaps the reason the people working to solve today’s international conflicts have such a hard time making a difference.

 Maybe if  others had the chance to watch President Peres joke around with his visitors, it would be easier to truly capture that sense of innate humanity that we as fallible and imperfect humans share. And it would therefore be easier to embrace or reject political moves based on an evaluation of the humanity behind such decisions. I know I am greatly simplifying the true nature of the political system, but my ultimate message is that there should be no reason that I shudder with startle in the face of the President, if it isn’t because I am inherently moved by my admiration for his mind and work (which I am).

 

 

Get Married, Make Money, Have Less Babies: The Imagined Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Domestic Dispute

For all of the cultural differences, religious divergences, linguistic barriers, physical polarities and literal borders that divide the human race, there are still three universal pieces of advice that mothers worldwide continue to bestow upon their young in the name of pursuing happiness:

Get married.  Find a good and successful mate that will care for you profoundly, until death do you part.

 Make money. Lots of money will bring you security and ultimately satisfaction.

 Have Babies. That’s right- reproduce as much as you can, so you carry on that family name and spread those covetable characteristics of yours.

During the Israeli Presidential Conference, Professor Dan Gilbert of Harvard University led a master class on the pursuit of happiness, addressing every mother’s take on the true path to joyful success. 

Gilbert argued that according to extensive research, mothers were for the most part getting it right. Studies did indeed show that married and rich individuals were exceedingly happier than their single and poor counterparts. Individuals with babies, however pleasurable the physical process of conceiving them was, proved to be significantly unhappier.

Amid enthralled applause as his conference session came to close, Gilbert gave his own statistically supported advice: get married, make money, and have less babies.

As I made my way out of the session, onto the next informative panel as to how to live my life and solve the world’s problems, I couldn’t help but mentally apply his advice to the Middle East as a whole, and of course, more specifically the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Perhaps promoted intermarriage, financial success, and less baby making could contribute to a more effective peace process.

As cliché and banal these words may sound, I find them to be ultimately accurate in their message: to overcome hate, one must learn to love. While many blame systematic segregation as the primary root to the Palestinian and Israeli division within the holy land, self segregation itself is a sad reality far overlooked. The education engrained within the minds of Arab and Jewish youth is a product of the Middle East’s violent history. Even the most cultured and travelled members of Israel’s younger generations often maintain a deep-rooted and enduring hatred for the ‘other side’. Self-segregation is logical in the face of such embedded cultural propaganda about the poisonous nature of all that is different.

But what if integration was made an essentiality?

I always remember an Arab friend of mine recounting the first time he began to shed his dark premonitions about the Israeli Jews that he had always been taught to despise. During an evening out with friends, he met and spent the remainder of his night with an incredibly intriguing woman. Upon opening his eyes the next morning in her bed, he found himself staring at an Israeli flag. Shocked, he asked her if she was Jewish, and amid teasing chuckles of amusement, she responded: yes. He had spent the entire night viewing her as what she was: a woman. Cultural ties and identity had been abandoned as a topic of discussion in their fervent enjoyment of one another’s company. To him, she was just another interesting human. His love of her as an individual helped him to understand how starkly ludicrous it was to judge her from an identity she was, without her control, born into. To this day, they remain close friends.  

So let’s apply Gilbert’s first piece of advice to the Middle East: Get intermarried. Date inter-culturally. Perhaps dating and marriage are one of the paths to cultivating intercultural relations. After all, love is love.

Mutual financial success is similarly a means to peace. If Gilbert is right, and money does make people more happy, wouldn’t the promotion of mutual business investment help further peace efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? An important collective interest- making loads of money- may garner cooperation and collaboration among Israelis and Palestinians sharing common business ventures. Joint business growth, creation and investment may, therefore, be one of the primary routes to non-violence.

And finally, less babies? – the big demographic issue of concern. National growth has its positives, but on a tiny piece of land that’s ownership is constantly under dispute, such growth should render extensive thought. Individuals need to further consider the implications of  familial growth, taking into serious consideration the obstacles and difficulties that will likely be faced throughout upbringing. So maybe the real concern at hand is not the need to have less babies, but to learn how to properly raise, educate and support them in a country with such volatile politics.

These are some of many undeveloped thoughts and revelations diluting my mind during my first week interning for President Shimon Peres. The Israeli Presidential Conference represents a safe haven of idealism, located in a country that must maintain a mentality of realism. I find that I am constantly floating between such contrasting dispositions, but am mainly frenzied because I am so incredibly happy to be here.  

The Dissatisfied Optimist Looking Towards Tomorrow

“The greatest contribution of the Jewish people to the world is dissatisfaction. We are never happy with the way the world is but care about how it should be.” Of all President Shimon Peres’ memorable quotes, coined as “Perisms” it was this one, chock full of Middle East meaning, loving self -degradation and wholesome Jewish mother complexity that resounded most in my mind.

After surviving the hefty and honorary security clearance necessary to begin my internship in the Israeli President’s House of Shimon Peres, my outlook on life was certainly an optimistic one. The interior of Peres’ House was golden- upon entry, I saw my future reflected in the shadow of the historical Shimon Peres as he made his way through the garden for his first interview of the day. Previously, I had been attempting to enjoy my Holy Land to the fullest- consuming absurdly large amounts of Shwarma and tehina, lazing about pool or beach side in the hot Israeli sun, exploring Kibbutz fields illegally for fresh avocados, and of course complaining heartily about the high price of living and slow transportation.

Complaining, specifically, was a favorite past time and one I engaged in fully while surrounded by family and friends: ‘There was something off about the food in Hila’s wedding.’ ‘The price of ice café was three shekels higher in Café Café than Aroma, and it wasn’t even tastier, so why?’ ‘It’s impossible to walk In Jerusalem in a tank top without a judgmental, religious stare.’ ‘The beach in Tel Aviv is littered with trash.’ ‘The Big Brother television show seems to get worse as each new season comes along.’

Ironically, such chronic complaining, often acknowledged as wimpy and pessimistic in the United States, is the norm and joy of Israelis nationwide. The Israeli way is the passionate way. Every happening deserves a fervent reaction, coated with emotion and zeal. All sentiments are crazed with vigor. Every object of existence merits a passing judgment. No one is quiet about how they feel.

Perhaps this is the reason that Israel continues to progress despite the constant setbacks of surrounding pressures. Complaints reflect inherent issues in the Israeli system. There is something wrong if one can’t comfortably afford a meal. There is something wrong if our beautiful Israeli beaches are refuse with the human fragments of a fun day. There is something wrong if a young woman does not feel comfortable baring her shoulders on the streets of a city that is just as much her own as it is of the orthodox religious man nearby.

But complaints also reflect intrinsic prejudices in the Israeli mindset, forged by a violent history of repression, oppression, and war: ‘This restaurant is full of too many Arabs.’ ‘She’s a Yemenite Jew, so obviously her family is crazy.’  These types of grievances, though despicable, are necessary because they remind us of why Israeli progress is essential.

“Tomorrow”, this year’s fifth Israeli Presidential Conference that took place from June 18th to June 20th, fully engaged the concept of dissatisfied optimism as necessary in attaining a peaceful Middle Eastern future. As an intern for President Shimon Peres, I had the fortune of participating in the preparations for not only the legendary conference, but also for the birthday celebration of the Israeli President.

Topics of discussion in the conference included issues of tomorrow: the role of traditional media, economic principles versus social values, the environment, Israel and a changing Middle East, the road to happiness, women’s equality, and global Jewish communities. Both international and domestic politicians, celebrities, students, and worker bees gathered in the name of hashing out the next day’s happenings.

President Peres will be turning 90 on August 2nd, yet he remains youthful in his outlook on life. He is the official dissatisfied optimist, who stays young because he “continues dreaming for tomorrow.” He believes peace is attainable, and he also believes that Iran’s new president-elect will work towards improving his country rather than his country’s nuclear capabilities.

In an interview with The Jewish News in Great Britain, previous to the conference, President Peres eloquently reflected on the path to Israeli perfection: “In places where passion runs high, that passion should be focused on finding solutions, not exacerbating conflict, on bringing people together, not dividing them, on looking to the future rather than the past.”

I am looking forward to complaining my way to change, as I optimistically face a new day of work in the President’s House tomorrow.